RLX-LH "Black Mamba" Service Rifle
A Service Rifle made with Russian engineering issued to the Spetznaz, the RLX "Black Mamba" is a closed rotating bolt, gas operated rifle. As a service rifle, it is open to massive customization, making it a potent weapon in the hands of an experienced soldier... and even an unexperienced one. History A step up from the traditional AK rifle, the RLX is actually a modified flamethrower. It's framework was first conceived back when you could still torch the battlefield with one, around the Cold War-Vietnam War era, where it was designated as the AK-PV, the PV standing for Pyro Variant. It was well known for shooting globs of fuel and was held by a foregrip attached in place of the magazine. It's gas piping was slung under the weapon, and attached to a fuel tank. When the use of flamethrowers became a war crime, the AK-PV was slowly phased out of the Spetsnaz and Russian Armies. Production stopped, and the remaining PV's were either preserved in museums, recycled, or simply lost to time. Russian Brothers Shuhrat Tankovyy and Vadim Tankovyy stumbled upon the RLX-LH while looking through their grandfather's barn. Why they were there is unknown. However, when looking through the operation notes, they found that the Black Mamba was designed to be highly customizable back in it's prime, even though it did not serve to be a service rifle due to it's powerful payloads. Most of these customizations were barrel ones, which shaped the charge it fired. The Tankovyy brothers had the idea to convert the flame lobber into a rifle adapted to being used long term, similar to the Kalashnikov assault rifles. At first, it was a simple frame swap of the Kalashnikov's mechanism. In the first few tests, the rifle did mediocre, but it became necessary that new parts needed to be milled when the entire mechanism locked up and fell apart from the inside when trying to put the safety off. After a few tests, the RLX was suitable for military combat. Possessing a light frame and a decent 640 RPM, combined with a 30 round magazine and gas operation, the RLX seemed a rifle fantastic for military use. But there was one problem: It's history. Back then, RLXs were machined from old AK-PVs. As they were simply converted into the RLX style, the PVs barrel and chamber remained contaminated of fuel used during the flamethrowing rifle's early days. Every shot was a gamble, due to the primer and powder explosion having a small chance of setting off the decades old fuel. One such incident happened in the disaster now regarded by the Spetsnaz and Russian forces as Большой винтовочный огонь (Bol'shoy vintovochnyy ogon', translates to Great Rifle Fire), where the ignition of PV fuel set off a massive fire during a firefight in the midst of the Russian summer. It's PV fuel meant that AK-PV conversion was no longer an option for arms manufacturers, and they had to work from scratch, raising manufacturing costs as it was much cheaper to do a simple mechanism port. Desire to continue production of the RLX began to decrease until the introduction of polymers